Hybrid Cloud Computing Sees Growing Acceptance

Hybrid Cloud Adoption Rises

More than a quarter (27%) have deployed a hybrid cloud, representing a 9% increase since 2013.

Benefits of Hybrid Cloud

79% said they expect to gain a competitive edge from megatrends, such as cloud, mobile, social and big data.

Reasons for Adopting a Hybrid Cloud

IT organizations want the financial benefits of hybrid cloud without compromising security: 64% cited the need for both increased agility and security.

Not All In on the Public Cloud

Only 16% of respondents would be willing to host any application on a public cloud. The apps that most respondents would not be willing to put in the public cloud include financial planning (39%), human capital management (35%) and ERP (32%).

IT Automation Key to Hybrid Success

Manual processes no longer scale in the age of the cloud; 74% said increasing automation in their infrastructure is imperative to business growth.

Internal IT Organization's Role

The role of the internal IT organization is changing. A full 71% said IT must start to serve as in-house brokers for on-demand services to help business growth.

Shortage of Skills and Knowledge

35% said their organizations don't have the right level of skills and knowledge to achieve business priorities.

Training a Challenge

A full 69% said training IT staff to keep pace with megatrendssuch as cloud, mobile, social and big datawill be a challenge for their organizations in the next year or two.

Internal IT organizations are increasingly coming to terms with hybrid cloud computing as long as a healthy dose of security can be applied. Although unwilling to deploy every application on a public cloud, IT organizations are finding that the agility enabled by public clouds has too much value to the business to ignore, according to the findings of a global study, conducted by the market research firm Vanson Bourne on behalf of EMC. The study, based on a survey of 10,451 IT business decision-makers, finds that more than a quarter of the respondents have already deployed at least one hybrid cloud. For solution providers across the channel the real opportunity may come in the form of the applications that ride across these hybrid clouds. Nearly seven in 10 said training IT staff to keep pace with the implications of megatrends, including cloud, mobile, social and big data, will be a challenge for their organization over the next one to two years. As such, the odds are good that many of those IT organizations will be looking outside for additional IT expertise. Here's a look at key takeaways from the study.